MANILA, 2 June 2007 — France's envoy yesterday appealed to the Philippines to sign and ratify an international treaty on disappearances as European human rights experts are due to help local authorities solve political killings.

Ambassador Gerard Chesnel said democratic governments around the world must support the treaty on disappearances to criminalize and to put to an end rampant state-sanctioned abduction of people.

“We do regret and condemn disappearances anywhere in the world,” Chesnei said in a keynote address during the celebration of the International Week of the Disappeared yesterday at the “Monument of Heroes” in Manila’s suburb of Quezon City.

In the Philippines, human rights advocates say nearly 200 people have disappeared since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was swept to power by street protests in 2001. Most of abduction cases were blamed on the military.

Arroyo’s officials say the number of “disappeared” is exaggerated and that many of those who vanished were taken by communist insurgents as part of an internal purge.

But the government’s reasoning appeared to have no takers even in the Philippine Supreme Court.

In another slap on Arroyo’s government, the Supreme Court threw out rebellion charges against six left-wing opposition lawmakers, and warned the justice secretary and government prosecutors against using their powers for political ends.

Chesnei, in his speech, said the state-sanctioned abduction and silencing of dissenters is “something that democratic countries cannot accept.”

Also present during yesterday’s gathering at the Monument of Heroes were Netherlands Ambassador Robert Vornis, Italian Ambassador Reuben Federe, and relatives of victims of “involuntary disappearances.”

France has been rallying global support for the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances since it was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2006.

Gabriel Munuera Vinals, head of the European Union’s public affairs section, said nine European human rights experts from the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, Germany and Spain were due this month to help Manila solve extra-judicial killings.

The Ruling

Ruling on the lawmakers’ petitions to block the rebellion case filed by the Department of Justice against them last year, the Supreme Court ordered the trial court handling the case to dismiss the charges.

“We find the petitions meritorious,” the Supreme Court said. The court said there was “obvious involvement of political considerations in the actuations of the respondent Secretary of Justice and respondent prosecutors” in the case against the six legislators — Crispin Beltran, Satur Ocampo, Teddy Casiño, Joel Virador, Rafael Mariano and Liza Maza.

“We cannot emphasize too strongly that prosecutors should not allow, and should avoid giving the impression that their noble office is being used or prostituted, wittingly or unwittingly, for political ends...,” said the high court’s decision penned penned by Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, who was once Arroyo’s chief legal counsel.

Malacañang Palace said the Supreme Court ruling “is fraught with far-reaching and adverse consequences” on the country’s criminal justice system.

“Time-honored and well-established principles on criminal law and procedure were seemingly trampled upon,” Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said, adding that the Department of Justice “is saddened and apprehensive.”

“The Department of Justice, through the Solicitor General, feels constrained to move for a reconsideration of the Supreme Court ruling if only to preserve the stability of our criminal justice system,” Bunye said.

The high court said elements of rebellion were absent in the case against the lawmakers. It pointed out that “rebellion was a crime of the masses or multitudes involving crowds again to achieve a political end.”

But going through records of the case, the high court said they “found merit in Beltran’s contention that the same are insufficient to show probable cause to indict him for rebellion.”

It particularly pointed to the testimonies of Ruel Escala and Raul Cachuela. Escala said that he saw Beltran and several others enter a chicken farm in Batangas province and met by someone who looked liked Magdalo leader Lawrence San Juan. Cachuela, said he saw Beltran attend the Communist Party of the Philippines’ 10th Plenum in 1992. The Magdalo was a group of junior officers and soldiers that staged a short-lived mutiny in July 2003.

The high court said the only thing proven by the testimonies was the fact that the lawmakers have been in Batangas and that Beltran attended the Plenum.

“None of the affidavits stated that Beltran committed specific acts of promoting, maintaining or heading a rebellion,” the high court said. In fact it pointed out that mere membership in the CPP did not constitute rebellion.

The high court also said that the arrest on Beltran was illegal because there was no proof that Beltran was committing rebellion in their presence. Under the law, warrantless arrest is only allowed if the person is caught actually committing the crime.

“We are vindicated. This is a triumph of truth and justice over the Arroyo government’s invented and unfair charge against duly-elected people’s representatives,” said Ocampo.

“President Arroyo and her fascist cabal tried their worst to crush the progressive partylist bloc in Congress. They miserably failed. We still won in the elections and in Supreme Court,” said Ocampo, whose party-list organization has been ranked second so far in the ongoing canvassing of votes for the party-list elections. “The tribunal’s ruling affirms our position that the charges against us are all fabricated, based only on perjured testimonies, full of legal shortcuts and obviously politically-motivated,” he said. Input from Reuters & Inquirer News Service